before he died.

Most persons who have lived some years in the world will understand this: They have been absent from that object which was dearest to them on earth; and where the treasure was, there was their heart also.

Our Lord's words are designed to turn the desires and feelings of the heart into the right direction. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where they cannot long profit you; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, which shall be yours after many days. Let your chief thought, your main purpose, be to attain "that world, and the resurrection of the dead." Judge of earthly things, not as they are pleasing or profitable now, but as they will promote or hinder your first business, which is the salvation of the soul. As St. John has repeated, in other words, his Lord's exhortation; "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world: For the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, are not of the Father, but of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God, abidethi for ever." 2

The danger, therefore, against which we are here warned, is not merely the sin of covetousness. The precept forbids that any earthly object shall so possess the heart as to furnish its ruling motive. To the ambitious man, reputation, advancement in honour and station is the treasure. To the proud man, the reverence paid to him by the submission of others; to the lover of earthly gratifications, the enjoyments of the world are the treasure, as much as the increase

21 John ii. 15.

of his substance to the lover of riches. The seeker of pleasure; the ambitious man; the man whose grand concern is to advance himself or his family; all these lay up their treasures upon earth, as much as he who makes wealth his idol. If our heart is so earnestly set upon any of these worldly things, that we seek them more diligently than we seek heaven, then they are our treasure, the principle of our life is wrong, and we are following an object which leads to disappointment and ends in death.

This is further illustrated by an example:

22. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

23. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

:

The light of the body is the eye the eye leads and directs the motions of the body; and what the eye is to the body, such is, to the man, the ruling. desire of the heart; the principle of action. If the eye be evil, fails or misleads, the whole body is full of darkness; so, if the principle of action be wrong, the whole conduct of life is wrong.

Therefore, if it is the principle of a man's life to lay up treasures on earth, to set his affections there, the light in him is darkness; he works by a wrong rule, he "labours for that which satisfies not;" he will find himself deceived at the last. How How great is that darkness which misleads the whole life!

But if his eye be single, if his first object be that which the gospel prescribes, to lay up treasures in heaven, then his whole body shall be full of light:

this principle will reduce all the concerns and affairs of life into proper order, and show them in their true colours, their real magnitude.

The rich worldling, in the parable, betrayed his ruling principle when he said, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." Such was the light he followed; and how soon it ended in darkness! "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?"

St. Paul, on the other hand, showed a very different principle, when he said concerning himself, "The Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying, that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God."4

Thus his eye was single, looking to one object only; and his whole body was full of light: his whole conduct was directed by a right principle. To "finish his course with joy," to obtain that "crown of righteousness" which the Lord the righteous Judge, shall give "to his faithful servants," this was his heart's desire; and therefore "bonds and afflictions," the pains of imprisonment and even the pains of death could not move him, because they could not take away his treasure. This treasure was in heaven; and whatever forwarded his progress towards heaven,

3 Luke xii. 17-19.

4 Acts xx. 23.

however outwardly grievous, would bring its consolation with it, because it would carry him nearer to his treasure. Just as a removal from his home, and his journey through a desert was welcome to the aged Jacob, because it carried him to the land where his beloved son might be once more seen. The lover of this world recoils from the thought of death, because he must leave his treasure behind him when he leaves this world; but the faithful follower of Christ is going to his treasure when taken from things below; going only to that scene of glory where his heart has been long fixed, and to those true joys prepared at the right hand of God for them that love him. "For he knows that if his earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, he has a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 5

5 2 Cor. v. 1.

LECTURE XXVI.

RELIANCE ON GOD'S PROVIDENTIAL CARE.

MATT. vi. 24-34.

24. No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and

mammon.1

In the verses which precede this, our Lord has strongly urged the necessity of seeing and pursuing our real interest in life, and laying up treasure which should never fail. Here he warns us, that this must be done simply and decidedly; he shows, by an unanswerable example, that we cannot serve this world and the next together. We must as surely set before ourselves a leading object, as a man must choose a certain master. No man

can serve two, without, at times, deserting one of them.

The heart of the worldly man often deceives him in this. He flatters himself that he is only paying a necessary attention to things on earth, and that he is still "laying up treasure in heaven." But occasions must arise when the interests of Mammon and of God are opposed to one another, and there must be a firm resolution, and a decided choice,

1 Mammon is a Syriac word, signifying money or gain.